Unfortunately, "best" and "innovative" don't necessarily translate into successful. And in this case, they don't translate into a second season -- "The Crossing" has been canceled.

The sci-fi drama started out looking like a political show about refugees coming to America until (not really a spoiler, since it happened right at the start) we learn that the refugees are in fact from America 180 years in the future.

The cancellation came as a bit of a surprise because the early reviews were quite positive -- not always the case with sci-fi shows. The majority of critics recommended it, according to the review aggregating site Rotten Tomatoes.

Toronto Star reviewer Johanna Schneller called it "deliciously promising," and the San Francisco Chronicle's David Wiegand said, "'The Crossing' has a European feel and a more deliberate pace to match ... fingers crossed on this one."

And those are just the professional critics. A budding sci-fi expert by the name of Stephen King praised the show on Twitter. "Hard to trust network TV drama over the long haul these days, but this is worth a look. The first five minutes are jaw-dropping -- strange and beautiful."

Note, however, that these people were all just reviewing the pilot. Things seemed to get worse from there, according to the ratings at least.

Its premiere drew 5.4 million viewers, which is middling for a network show, but the numbers pretty well plummeted from there. By the sixth episode, it was drawing just 3.7 million, at which point ABC decided to cancel it. The ratings bleed continued from there so that the series finale airing five weeks later drew just 2.1 million.

That steady drop -- a loss of nearly two-thirds of its audience from beginning to end -- means it was unlikely to draw attention from any other networks (or streaming sites) for a last-minute rescue.

It's worth noting that even some of those positive reviews predicted this end. Melanie McFarland from Salon.com put it simply: "The show probably isn't going to be with us for long. Which is too bad."

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